Hunting the hunter: Blue Hills naturalist is on the trail of the hawk

L.E. Campenella

Thursday

Sep 27, 2007 at 12:01 AMSep 27, 2007 at 3:52 PM

MILTON - The red-tailed hawk’s majestic wings cast a shadow across the grass near the prey it was about to grab in its talons. It swoops to the ground with outstretched claws. Suddenly, a net comes down on the hawk.

The red-tailed hawk’s majestic wings cast a shadow across the grass near the prey it was about to grab in its talons. It swoops to the ground with outstretched claws. Suddenly, a net comes down on the hawk.

The predator has become the captured.

It’s fall in New England, which means migration season for hundreds of bird species, but for Norman Smith, director of the Trailside Museum in the Blue Hills Reservation, it is bird-of-prey-catching season.

For 26 years, Smith has been on the trail of the hawk.

‘‘They’re built to hunt,’’ Smith, of Whitman, said. ‘‘They’re great at what they do.’’

Except on this day the hunter has become the hunted.

Smith runs from a bird blind he and other volunteers built atop Chickatawbut Hill and untangles the hawk from the net so it can be weighed, measured, banded or tagged, and then set free.

Unlike a mouse, pigeon or sparrow that would be dinner in a hawk’s taloned claw, in Smith’s netted trap, the mighty predatory birds will live to fly, and hunt another day.

The hawk doesn’t struggle. It doesn’t try to fly away, and it doesn’t screech.

All the hawk can do is extend its mighty wings and give Smith a look from its angry yellow eyes.

Its sharp beak and barbed tongue are inches away from Smith’s weather-lined eyes, but it doesn’t strike.

It just eyes Smith.

‘‘It’s never what you think,’’ Smith said. ‘‘Birds are like people. Some are aggressive, and some aren’t.’’

Since 1981, Smith has been catching red-tailed, Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks, peregrine falcons, American kestrels and other birds of prey, known as raptors, each September and October to track their migration patterns.

During autumn birds fly south for the winter. During the spring they fly north. What isn’t always known is from where and to where they fly, how large their populations are and how long they live.

Last year Smith caught a red-tail that had been banded at the top of Chickatawbut Hill when it was a hatchling, or a 1-year old.

‘‘We hadn’t seen him in 17 years,’’ Smith said.

Other hawks he has tagged have been tracked as far south as Panama and as far north as Manitoba.

Smith, 55, said he has been fascinated by raptors since he was a boy.

When raptors show signs of deterioration from pesticides, fertilizers, PCBs and other chemicals, it means it won’t be long until humans become affected, he said.

‘‘They’re really indicators of the environment. By monitoring and watching them, we know what’s going on in the ecosystem,’’ Smith said. ‘‘Whatever affects them will ultimately affect us.’’

A quarter-century of research at Blue Hills has shown that populations of some species such as the Cooper’s hawk and peregrine falcon are increasing, while others, like the sharp-shinned hawk and American kestrel, are declining.

More than 5,000 people in the United States and Canada are licensed to catch and tag these birds to track their movements.

Smith is known throughout the state as the most prodigious and consistent chronicler of the migratory patterns of birds of prey - especially hawks and the snowy owl.

‘‘He’s the most active raptor bander in the state,’’ said Thomas French, assistant director of the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. ‘‘The only way to get individual histories is to band them.’’

Unless licensed, like Smith, anyone who tries to capture a hawk, migratory birds or any endangered species risks harming the bird and faces hefty fines and possible jail time.

On each bird’s band is a telephone number so that the finder may relay information about the bird to National Bird Banding Laboratory, a division of the U.S. Geological Survey in Washington, D.C.

Many are killed by hunters and about 60 percent are unaccounted for.

More often, a bird is recaptured by a bander somewhere else and its location is recorded at the banding laboratory.

Smith will finish banding hawks at the end of October and move into his other love, capturing and tagging snowy owls.

He is world-renowned in the study of snowy owls and will discuss the effects of global warming on the arctic predators with fellow researchers from Russia, Norway, Finland and other nations at the World International Owl Conference in Holland in November.

He said research is important, but without the preservation of the natural world - not only hawks, owls and falcons, but also parks like the Blue Hills - the future of the world could be one condominium development after another.

‘‘As stewards of these places we have to make sure they are protected and preserved to make sure future generations get the same opportunity as we have.’’

L.E. Campenella of The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.) may be reached at lcampenella@ledger.com.

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